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The South Texas Civil Rights Project has filed a lawsuit against the San Juan Police Department for conducting checkpoints in the city.
The state lawsuit was officially filed on Wednesday.
San Juan police have been performing vehicle checkpoints in order to put together a database of all known gang members in the area.
According to the STCRP’s attorney Joseph Martin, the group filed the lawsuit because they feel the checkpoints are “unconstitutional”.
He also said they believe the information the police department is gathering is illegally being used to compile the database.
“We are concerned that people are being labeled as gang members based on unreliable information and without even being suspected of committing any crime.” Martin said. “There doesn’t appear to be any procedure in place to notify an effected person, or their parent or guardian in the case of juveniles, to allow them to contest their inclusion.”
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